'Bones' Season 12, Episode 1 Review: The Hope In The Horror

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TJ Thyne and Tamara Taylor in the Bones season premiere. (Photo by Ray Mickshaw/FOX)

Welcome to the final season of Bones reviews! If you're just tuning in, you can find my previous reviews, for all episodes from season 6 through 11, at the bottom of this post. And if you're a regular reader, you know the drill: I summarize and critique the forensics in each episode the way only a real anthropologist (and unapologetic Bones fan) can - with quite a bit of snark but also a deep appreciation for 12 years of a show that stars a strong female scientist.

The season 11 cliffhanger showed us Zack Addy's scarred face as he is revealed to have kidnapped Dr. Brennan. Far from being a docile inmate at the mental health facility, Zack is erratic, escaping at will and, the Jeffersonian crew suspect, killing more people. But Zack insists that he is misunderstood and, more importantly, that Brennan is in mortal danger.

Although Angela has footage of Brennan moments before her kidnapping, it appears Zack turned off several inside cameras -- but not the outside ones, meaning he is holding her somewhere in the Jeffersonian. Hodgins somehow knows that the hand lotion Brennan favors has glycerin in it, and he reprograms some sort of bomb detection equipment to hit on the substance so that he can track her. In spite of the fact that Zack drugged Brennan and presumably carried her off, Hodgins finds a trail that leads to the elevator. Booth correctly guesses they are in the basement and heads off without any backup as usual. He hears Brennan ask Zack to put a syringe down and, fearing the worst, comes in with his gun drawn. Zack insists he is attempting to inject himself with sodium thiopentol or truth serum, so that Brennan will believe he did not kill anyone.

Police take Zack into custody. Saroyan is confused, Booth wants Brennan to see a doctor, but Brennan wants to go see her kids. Brennan is increasingly convinced that Zack is not the serial killer -- the Puppeteer -- they are looking for, and she begins to convince Booth as well. Hodgins, who was one of Zack's closest friends, seems oddly angry at him, especially considering he is the biggest fan of conspiracy theories and would be the most likely to disbelieve the charges against Zack.

At the FBI, Booth, Aubrey, and Brennan meet Dr. Roshan, the head of the facility in which Zack has been institutionalized, who brings them a box of his personal effects. He seems shocked to learn that Zack has been leaving the facility for well over a year, but they have security footage of it. Roshan also lets slip that Dr. Sweets had been visiting Zack regularly. When Sweets was murdered, Zack had trouble processing this and injured his head when he found out. Apparently no one thinks to read Sweets's notes on Zack. Aubrey talks to Zack, who again proclaims his innocence with respect to the murders. But he does cop to the kidnapping, escapes, and to reading the emails of his former friends Brennan, Saroyan, Hodgins and Angela for years.

Angela checks out the computer that Zack used at the library when he would sneak out. He apparently left files on it, including an untitled one with email he had written and signed Dr. Alexander Bancroft. This doctor supposedly created a new protocol to help paralyzed people walk again, and Hodgins was seeing success with it. Angela realizes that Zack completely made it up to give Hodgins hope.

Meanwhile, Wendell is dealing with the osteological evidence found in the basement amid the puppets and blood. He ID's most of the bone shards as being from Melissa Goodman based on texture and color. But he also finds a fragment of incisor with tetracycline banding. Since this isn't present in any of the other three known victims, it likely means a fourth.

So Wendell and Brennan head to the macabre basement to look for more evidence. Since no one else is with them and since Booth and Saroyan didn't know they were leaving, it's unclear how they got in. But it continues to be creepy, and they find, behind a hidden door, the upper half of a fourth skeleton. Based on the condition of the bone, Brennan thinks the person died 10 or 20 years prior. Rounded supraorbital margins suggest male, and a partially fused humeral epiphysis reveals the person was in his late teens when he died. The inferior margin of the fourth lumbar vertebra has striae suggestive of a saw cut. Lateral compression fractures along the second through fourth lumbar vertebrae reveal severe, uncorrected scoliosis. In the wound to the L4, Hodgins finds surgical steel, and Saroyan finds propofol in the desiccated tissue. The person probably died on an operating table. But Angela gets no hits in the missing persons database.

The FBI folks meanwhile are attempting to profile the Puppeteer killer. Karen Delfs is mysteriously back from Kansas, and thinks that they might be dealing with dissociative identity disorder (DID) in which one personality kills the victims and the other wants to be found out. She thinks Zack is the most likely candidate, suffering from it after his self-inflicted head wound, but also points out that the psychologist Dr. Faulk could have done it. Booth and Brennan confront Faulk, who is creepy AF but doesn't seem to have done it. Still, he makes Booth and Brennan think that maybe Delfs isn't telling the whole truth about her leaving Kansas.

Delfs suggests they let Zack look at the case files for the three recent murders, to see if they are missing anything and to see if a second personality will come out. While they do that, Booth meets with Dr. Roshan again, who brings him files on other inmates with DID who spent time with Zack. Delfs then frantically calls for Booth, who rushes in to find that Brennan and Zack have concluded that Zack is guilty because... well, it's not sufficiently explained. But Booth doesn't buy it.

Wendell then finds something interesting on the L4 vertebra: a sliver of fused bone attached at a near-90 degree angle. Brennan realizes what happened: the lower half of the body is not missing. It is attached to a living person -- a conjoined twin. The killer, so mentally unstable from having his twin die, adopted his dead brother's personality and went on a killing spree. Since the bones were exhumed between 10-20 years ago, Angela does some age-progressive facial reconstruction based on the skull. And Brennan immediately recognizes Dr. Roshan. She calls Booth to send him to rescue Zack.

Roshan is attempting to inject Zack with something that will kill him, all while saying soothing things. Zack gets a look at the bottle, though, and fights back. He wrestles the syringe away from Roshan but can't bring himself to kill him with it. Roshan then stabs Zack in the leg and attempts to inject him again, but Booth shoots him dead.

Zack is cleared of the puppeteer serial killings, but is still being held because of the killing of the lobbyist years prior. Booth doesn't think he did it, though, and concurs with Zack that the evidence should be reexamined. We can only hope that this means that Zack is back for the season, with a nice tidy resolution to that murder to come!

Anthropological Comments

Age and sex estimation were entirely reasonable given the lack of the pelvis.

Not sure why a fragment of an incisor would be on the floor, when the brother's skeleton was covered in cobwebs in the wall and the basement was clearly swept regularly. But the tetracycline banding was a good way of introducing a fourth skeleton. Still, they could have used that information, say, to look for the banding in Roshan too, in order to show a potential relationship.

There was quite a lot of information in that L4 vertebra! Not sure that metal particulates from a surgical saw would be found, though, after the person had been dead for 30 years (and buried for 20 and exhumed and paraded around...).

Plot Comments

While the plot was nicely paced, and I do love me some Zack-exoneration, it was also kinda confusing and unrealistic. I've covered some of these already in the summary, but here are some more...

Dr. Faulk has a restraining order out on Booth? A federal agent? Who doesn't know about it?

It is not the job of the forensic anthropologist to determine guilt or innocence, so when Brennan and Zack conclude that he definitely did it -- it's just bizarre, especially since there is no explanation for why they think that.

Brennan also claims to Booth that she has proof that Dr. Roshan did it... from an age-progressed facial reconstruction. I know the show needs stuff for Angela to do, but the facial reconstructions always bug me. They're not proof and cannot even be admitted into court because they don't meet scientific standards of replicability. Brennan could get a warrant for a DNA sample and test it against the bones. But of course she doesn't have that kind of time when Zack's life is on the line.

Was the death of the conjoined twin ever explained? I mean, they were in their teens -- would it have been a surgery gone wrong? Presumably not a surgery to separate them, since Brennan implied that they shared a bottom half. Why doesn't Roshan show any evidence of having been conjoined (like having scoliosis)? Did he kill other people earlier, or did he just randomly turn murderous recently? I guess the puppet thing follows from the conjoined twins thing, but this was never explained either. So many questions!

Since I just watched the latest episode of Sherlock the other day, though, I kept thinking "It's not twins. It's never twins!"

Quotable quote: “Being perceived as a murderous cannibal does have some advantages.” – Zack

Rating

I continue to be stupid excited that Zack is back, and that he might potentially be cleared of all charges eventually. But while the forensics in the episode were fine, the plot this week left me with so many questions about how bad the forensics team and the FBI are at their jobs that I got distracted often. I give The Hope in the Horror a B+ .